


Juno Steel and the Unlikely Union

by anticyclone



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Chocolate Box Treat, Fake Marriage, Kinda, M/M, Surprises, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 17:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: Juno never should have let Sasha talk him into taking this case. He should have bowed out at "retired Dark Matters agent," but he's already in the fancy dress, and he's already at the fancy apartment, and the client has already recognized him, and… Wait, what?





	Juno Steel and the Unlikely Union

**Author's Note:**

  * For [track_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/gifts).



> This immediately jumped into my head at your prompt, _Peter and Juno keep meeting in the most unexpected places._ It kind of ran away immediately afterward, but I swear it started there. Happy Chocolate Box!

Juno never should have let Sasha talk him into taking this case.

Agent Emelina Rodelay insisted, with all the furor an eighty-two-year-old retired Dark Matters agent could insist, on having their first meeting over tea.

And really, he should have bowed out at  _ retired Dark Matters agent _ , but Sasha had laid into him about the Proctor debacle and never calling Mick and then dropped that she'd consider this a personal and professional favor. In Hyperion City, you didn't pass up the chance to get a chip in with Dark Matters. Especially when you were so low on chips as Juno Steel.

So he had reluctantly let Rita outfit him in the appropriate accessories - gloves, fascinator, the traditional vial-of-poison locket, empty and strictly for show - and hiked his way out to Fairview Acres. They had to call up to Agent Rodelay at the gate and threatened to do an retinal scan before they let him in.

"Really? A lot of one-eyed ladies trying to get into the building today?" he asked.

Rita had insisted on changing his eyepatch from plain black to pale rose gold for the occasion. He hadn't asked  _ why  _ she had a rose gold eyepatch. He'd been too busy trying to stop her from fastening paste pearls in his ears. The guards had looked at the eye for a long moment before deciding to go with Agent Rodelay's description. They had even held the door open for him.

Ha. Juno would've made him, in their place, go through with the scan. He wondered if Agent Rodelay was aware security was slacking so much.

Fairview Acres was a hundred-story chrome highscraper with a rooftop hothouse that liked to pretend it was a sprawling, natural, Earth-style retreat for people who had so much money they didn't know what to do with it. Juno kept his chin up as he walked through the lobby: half the size of a city block and complete with in-ground goldfish ponds. One of them snapped at him as he walked past, electricity crackling down its spines, and his hand twitched toward the knife strapped to his thigh under his tea gown.

Agent Rodelay cooed over the gown as soon as he walked through the door. "Oh, this is truly your color, dear, so much softer than the last time I saw you," she said, kissing both his cheeks.

To which Juno witfully replied, "Huh?"

"Oh I suppose we didn't actually  _ meet,  _ I just feel like…" And then she squinted at him. Her heels made her taller than Juno - he couldn't walk for shit in stilettos - and she touched her hand to his chin to move his face back and forth. He was bewildered enough to let her. "Oh. Hmm. Dear, do you use Steel professionally?"

"Only when they won't let me bring my blaster in."

"Ha, very," Agent Rodelay said. She pursed her lips slightly and let him go.

In the parlor a tea set was already out on the table, hand-blown glass in fantastic, organic shapes. They settled down on either side of the table. A woman in a suit came out in a sporty silver wheelchair with a hovering serving tray at her side, and quickly dispersed snack cakes among them and sugar for Juno's tea. She also looked at him like she knew about the knife on his thigh. He leveled a look back at her. If he'd  _ owned _ a second tea-length gown that wasn't so thin it would show the outline of his weaponry in the right light, he would have worn it.

"I must say it is a surprise to see you. When Agent Wire said Juno Steel, and sent me your photo for security - well, you just looked so different."

"The eyepatch is recent," Juno said, stiffly. He was waiting for the tea to cool enough that it wouldn't burn his tongue.

"Oh I didn't mean that, dear. You just looked so different from the vacation photos."

Juno was thrown again. He'd assumed she had recognized him from a paper, or a tabloid, if people with as much money as Agent Rodelay read tabloids. "Beg pardon?"

"The vacation photos from The Martian High Museum," she said.

"The what now?"

He had been to the High Museum, of course, twice as a kid because even Old Town kids got sent on field trips to the museum that punched the second-highest point in the Hyperion City skyline. It was called the High Museum because it was a vast, three-story saucer at the top of a slim tower.

The first level had glass floors, it was terrifying, and Juno had only been there as an adult because Rita had accepted a case on his behalf. It was amazing how used to terror you could get in the third hour of a gala hosted on that glass floor. The thief his client had been sure would show up that night never had, but he'd still gotten paid.

"Robin showed them to me, when he was here."

Juno had to laugh. "I'm still not following, Agent Rodelay."

"Do call me Emelina, Agent Rodelay makes me feel like I'm due my annual review." She sighed and cupped her tea with both hands, squinting at him again. "Did he not tell you? When I saw you, I thought that  _ must  _ have been why Agent Wire recommended you, because Robin and I did have such a grand time although he had to leave early, and then I never followed up with him about the restoration anyway because of course those were the pieces that were taken, so…"

Oh. Oh no. Juno was starting to get a creeping feeling along the back of his neck.

"Anyway, I got to talking about George and Lila that day, so Robin showed me your photos from the museum. He didn't mention your job, or that you used another name for work, which is why I didn't realize it was going to be you. But of course I understand security precautions. Is he still in the city? You didn't surely make a trip all the way to Mars just for me, did you?"

His hands twitched toward his knife again. He wanted to look at the case of her servingware right now. He wanted to look at the catalog photos, and the pieces that hadn't been taken, and the security footage from the lobby which if the guards were sloppy enough to let  _ him  _ in without a retinal scan had probably been overwritten by now, but if he could just confirm that it was who would be the only person brazen enough to do this...

"Anyway pink is much better on you than red, dear, although I do understand dressing up for our spouses," Emelina said, smiling again.

When Juno got his hands on Peter Nureyev, he was going to  _ strangle him. _

***

"Rita, how hard would it be for someone to grab security camera footage from the Martian High Museum?"

"The Museum? Boss, I thought you were at Fairview Acres today. You did keep the job, right? You didn't stand up Agent Rodelay, did you?"

"This  _ is  _ about the case, Rita."

"But I thought her tea set had been stolen from the apartment?"

"Rita." Juno threw himself into the front seat of his car and tossed the fascinator in the back. The feathers were starting to itch. "Just tell me. How hard would it be?"

"To be honest, boss, their security ain't much, so it would only take a pretty decent computer and a couple of hours - But if you were smart you'd just go to the events page on the website and download all the photos, they'd be much better quality."

"Download the what?"

"Oh all the galas have professional photographers, Mr. Steel, all the photos are right there online. You could pretty much case the whole museum that way."

"Great." He eased the car into traffic and worked on not breaking the steering wheel. "Would there be photos of me in there?"

"You were there, weren't you?" There was clicking in the background and Rita pronounced, "Four good ones of you and a bunch with you in the background. This one is actually pretty good, I should add it to your website."

He sniped a spot in the next lane over. "The website I specifically told you I didn't want?"

"That's the one!"

Juno sighed. "So you're telling me that anybody could take these photos and act like they'd taken them?"

Rita snorted. "Well it wouldn't be hard. Even Yennifer Gales did it in the thirty-fourth season of  _ Back on the Ranch,  _ and she had just woken up from a coma after getting kicked in the head by a horse. Ooh, I hate horses, nothing creeps me out more than all those scales."

"Great. That's just great." He pictured, again, strangling Nureyev. "Can you run a search for me on all the dark auction sites? Anything relating to green porcelain."

"That's gonna be an awful lot."

"It is?"

"Green porcelain is in vogue, Mr. Steel!"

***

Juno had never run backwards down a staircase before, but after twenty hours straight of tracking this sugar bowl up down and around Hyperion City, he wasn't about to let it smash to pieces on the marble of a subway station.

Peter had always been taller than him, though. He just reached out and grabbed it from the air as Juno hit the last step.

Then Juno crashed into him, and Peter wrapped his arm around Juno's chest to keep them from falling over. Peter laughed in his ear, and tucked the sugar bowl somewhere Juno couldn't catch from this angle. He whispered, "I don't think we should stay here long, darling," and hopefully missed Juno's shudder in the laser fire that nearly caught his elbow.

They whirled out of the subway station up a staircase marked employees only that Peter should not have been able to scan them into. The station was three stories underground and Juno was panting for breath by the time they neared the top. But before Peter could open that door, too, Juno grabbed the hood on his coat and nearly pulled him back down the steps.

Peter whirled around and caught Juno's wrist in his hand. That fox look was back again, and having someone look at you that sharp and hungry would've made anyone's gut twist. Pounding echoed through the stairwell as someone at the bottom started to try to kick the door in. "I think this isn't the time, Detective," Peter said, trying to pull Juno up a step.

But Juno planted his feet and dragged his heels.  _ "Robin and Starling Mallow?" _

Peter smiled, but only after a split-second pause and inhale Juno would've missed if he'd blinked. "Agent Rodelay was getting a little too curious about why a restoration expert from the Outer Rim would be on Mars. I needed a way to distract her." He leaned in, while the hammering on the door got louder, and nearly pressed his mouth to Juno's. "You did look nice in that red dress."

"That's - Thank you - That's not the  _ point,  _ Nureyev. Were you  _ there,  _ at the museum? Is that why nobody tried to get away with the Lacey installation, because you saw me?"

"Answers take precious time, which I believe we are running short of," Peter said.

Juno would have protested, but one of the door hinges clattered noisily to the floor at the bottom of the stairwell.

He let go of Peter and followed him at a brisk run onto a bus headed toward uptown. They fell into seats in the back, but when Juno opened his mouth, Peter settled a hand on his knee. "Not here," he said, firmly.

"I'm going to need that sugar bowl back."

Peter's eyes lit up. "We'll talk about it when we get there."

***

_ There  _ turned out to be a motel. The swankiest motel Juno had ever been to, and that was a fairly large sample size.

Peter had to put Juno between him and the door, scan them in with his palm, and then push Juno in before the door slammed shut behind them. Or maybe he didn't, and that was just an excuse to already have his hand on Juno's shoulder so he could guide Juno up against the nearest wall and smile down at him with that fox grin.

"Sugar bowl," Juno said, holding his hand out.

"Nice to see you too, Juno."

"I'm serious. That's the last piece in the set and I have been through Hell and high water to get it."

"I know the boys back there were giving you a hard time, but they weren't that bad." Peter's hand disappeared into the front of his coat and reappeared with the sugar bowl in hand.

He pressed it into Juno's palm, and then Juno stared at it like a goldfish from Fairview Acres had just jumped into his hand. Really? That was all it took? Juno cleared his throat and brought out the sheaf of bubble wrap Rita had stuck into his collection bag earlier. "I mean literally. I had to walk through Hell Boulevard to get to the subway station before they made their sale, and it had flooded. Some damn taxi drove straight into a fire hydrant."

"That would certainly explain why your shoes are in … such a state."

Juno glared at him and made sure to zip his bag shut. And then shift the strap so the bag was between him and the wall, where Peter (probably) couldn't get it. "It's been real, Nureyev, but if you're just going to insult my clothes I'm going to show myself out."

"Wait."

Peter's hand locked around his wrist like a vise. For no reason at all Juno got the feeling of that door in Miasma's lair slamming shut, the sound of the airlocks hissing into place. He was used to reliving things, it was all he ever seemed to do, it was what kept him sharp. But this time, with his shoulders against the wall and Peter looking down at him carnivorous and starving, it felt exactly like he was getting locked out on the other side of the door.

But that meant Miasma was … There was still a shoe to drop, if Juno was on the wrong side of the door with Peter.

"I have to get this back to Emelina," he heard himself say. 

"That's fine, Juno, I already got paid once for it. But do you have to leave right now?"

"It's kind of the job."

"You can finish the job later," Peter said, and Juno had not had the chance to hear Peter Nureyev speak for - for a while, sure - but he knew what that tone of voice meant.

He twisted his wrist to break Peter's grip and squeezed out from between him and the wall, his bag bumping against his hip as he walked toward the window. "Boy is it hot in here or is it just me?"

"That window doesn't open, Juno."

"Oh - doesn't... It doesn't, does it?" Juno leaned against the glass and tried not to act like his hand was stinging from the effort of trying to get the window up. He was also trying to figure out how he could get out of this place without going up against Peter, who was still standing by the door. "I feel like I interrupted you," he said, and tried not to notice the way Peter's head tilted. "You sure you don't have someplace to be?"

There was a long pause before Peter said, "You did look lovely in that red dress."

Juno wanted to turn himself inside out but he was pretty sure Peter was already doing that for him. He swallowed and a knot stayed lodged in his throat, he tried to brace himself on the windowsill and found his hand slipping. "Of course I looked - I looked damn amazing in that dress, but you know what? If you had wanted to say so you had the chance that night."

He regretted it as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

Goddamnit, Steel.

Sometimes the Miasma on the other side of the door, waiting to open it and suck you back into the shadows, was just … you.

"I… God, Peter, I shouldn't have-"

"I'm sorry, Juno."

What? "What?"

"I shouldn't have pushed you so fast. I've never been the kind of person to have my feet on the ground and I should have known…" Peter sighed, slowly, and ran a hand through his hair. "It wasn't right of me to ask you to leave so soon. That you left that night… I don't blame you, Juno. You should have."

What.

_ "What?" _

Juno was suddenly in the middle of the room. He must have moved. He must have picked up his feet and walked, but he didn't remember it.

"Are you crazy? Are you actually - I left in the middle of the night and you're apologizing to me? I was - I let my fear get a hold of me, and I - I let it pin me down, and this city, I let this goddamn city keep chewing away at me," he stammered, starting to shake. Oh. This was so bad.

"Juno, Juno," Peter murmured, hands cupping Juno's face. His fingers were cool on Juno's skin in the sweltering room.

"Why would you come back?" Juno meant to shout it, but it came out cracked. His hands were shaking too much to try pushing Peter away. He fumbled to get his tongue to work and felt himself spitting it out, furious,  _ "For me?" _

"That's exactly why," Peter said, and did not kiss him. Instead he stared as Juno had to screw his eye shut to keep the room from spinning. One of his hands floated down from Juno's jaw to rest on his shoulder. His fingers were hot even through the fabric of Juno's coat. "I am sorry for trying to pull you away when you wanted to stay. You deserve an apology for that. And for me not coming after you."

Juno took several deep breaths and forced himself to open his eye again. He stood down Miasma, he shut himself in a room with a world-ending bomb, he could damn well look Peter Nureyev straight in the face.

A lot flickered through his mind. Peter was looking at him, intent, still sharp but less predatory, more - more like a man looking at a dome in the Martian desert instead of a fox cornering a … whatever it was that foxes ate. And he was losing his train of thought, because it was so  _ easy  _ to just stare back and not think of anything. Anything at all. It would be so easy to rock up and kiss Peter Nureyev, and that was why Juno forced himself to open his mouth, instead.

Not that he'd ever had a problem letting his mouth get the better of him. "I'm glad you're back," he admitted, horrified for a split second that he'd said it so softly he might have to  _ repeat himself. _

Instead, Peter did kiss him. Finally.

Juno shortly had to put his bag with the sugar bowl to the side, because he wasn't going to be responsible for telling Emelina that he'd gotten everything else back but broken that.

***

Rita beeped him a couple of hours later. Juno fumbled for the comm without raising his head from the pillow, while Peter's thumb traced circles on his back. "Tell Emelina that I'm on my - Tell her I'm coming. I'll be there before dinner." He paused, and corrected, "I'll be there before dessert."

"I mean could, I guess, but then you're going to miss the big news," Rita said.

Juno pressed his face down into the pillow. "Mmmflllff?"

"What? Mr. Steel, speak up, I can't understand a word you're saying."

"If the client wasn't calling, Rita, what news could you have? I found the sugar bowl, that was the last of it."

"You did? Oh, good, the value of a tea set goes down so much if you lose the sugar bowl and Agent Rodelay is so nice I would hate for her to come away with a depreciated tea set, there was a whole episode of  _ Antiques Outer Rim Skyshow  _ about it-"

"Rita."

"But that wasn't what I was calling about. What I was calling about was your taxes."

Okay. Juno forced himself to pull his head up off his pillow. Peter's hand had gone still on his back. "It's  _ November.  _ What could my taxes possibly be doing during November?"

"Well that's just it, they ain't doing anything, but the mail just came, and the mailman said that he was so late because the flooding out on Hell Boulevard has frozen through 'cause an ice machine truck crashed into it, or else we would've had the envelope earlier and I could've told you before the banks closed-"

_ "Rita." _

"Juno," Peter murmured. "Perhaps we should…"

"Well there was a gold envelope in there so of course I opened it straightaway because everybody knows what a gold tax envelope means and I thought it was gonna be for the neighbors who just got hitched but Mr. Steel, it was for _you,_ " Rita said, breathlessly, not making a single lick of sense. "Except they got your name wrong so it took me like fourteen whole minutes to track the error down. And then the banks were closed."

Juno gripped the comm unit in his fist and rolled over, sheets tangling around his legs. Peter was on his back now, staring up at the ceiling, absolutely refusing eye contact. "Did you say a gold envelope, Rita?"

"Sure did, boss! And everybody knows you get a gold envelope from the tax service with a little bonus in it after you get married, after city hall accidentally wrote that law about parking tickets wrong, so when it said Starling Mallow on it I thought it had to be a mistake but then I looked it up and there was a photo of you in the registry and everything! Except I don't know who this Robin is, but he's  _ very  _ handsome, why haven't you introduced us? I can't believe you got married and didn't tell me!"

"It was news to me too. Look, Rita, I'm going to have to call you back."

"But Mr. Steel, are you even gonna have a honeym-"

Juno hung up and dropped the comm to the mattress. "Peter."

Peter blinked at him, a picture of innocence. "Yes?"

"What did you do?"

"Well, you know. When trying to bluff a Dark Matters agent, even a retired one, you can't leave anything to chance. What if she had tried to look us up after I left?" Peter paused. "I was always very good at forgery. I suppose I must have been  _ too  _ good."

Juno just stared at him.

Peter shrugged. As much as a person could shrug while lying face-up on a bed. "The Hyperion City DMV is  _ notoriously  _ sloppy with these kinds of things."


End file.
